一个benomics’ Third Arrow Spurs Dan Loeb and Others to Shake Up Japan

几十年日本Inc.令人沮丧的是关于所有试图煽动大门的外国股东活动家的努力。Beginning with T. Boone Pickens’s 1989 bid to get seats on the board of Koito Manufacturing Co., a Toyota parts supplier, Japanese companies have relied on insider board directors and passive domestic investors to block activists’ attempts to gain influence over strategy or increase dividend payouts.

Today, however, activists are enjoying unprecedented success. And they are doing so by wrapping themselves in the Japanese flag — and the corporate governance reforms of Prime MinisterShinzo Abe.- 改变活动。

拿丹洛伯。In his October 2015 quarterly letter to investors, the founder and CEO of第三点announced that the hedge fund firm had taken a stake in Seven & i Holdings Co. in what he proclaimed to be “one of the most crucial tests for the success of corporate governance reform in Japan.”

Paying little mind to shareholder returns over the years, the company — Japan’s largest retailer and the operator of the country’s 7-Eleven convenience store chain — had propped up lossmaking businesses, paid miserly dividends and never considered分享回购。过去几年，七个＆我本来可以将Loeb放在一边，作为一个愿意破坏日本的短期收益机构的外国监督员。但由于ABE拥抱更大的股东参与他所谓的所谓的一部分公司治理改革的第三个箭头，像Loeb这样的投资者已经获得了真正的影响力。

Loeb has been campaigning for greater shareholder returns in Japan since 2013 and has taken stakes in robot maker Fanuc Corp., Suzuki Motor Corp., construction and machinery giant IHI Corp. and Sony Corp., the electronics and entertainment company. “We effectively give them a dare-to-be-great speech that connects them to the principles around governance that their own government has articulated as part of the third arrow strategy,” Loeb tells亚博赞助欧冠。“It’s subtle, but I think it’s more palatable because the companies don’t have to do something that an outsider wants them to do; they are following the leadership of their own government.”

Abe的改革包括去年通过的新公司治理守则，敦促企业将其股权返回升至8％以上。他们还需要在东京证券交易所第一和第二部分上市的公司 - 该国的大中型企业 - 至少有两名独立董事。措施旨在推动更多的企业纪律和刺激委员会对股东更加关注。

自代码生效以来，几乎所有在日本的大型公司都曾任命两个或更多，境外董事;然而，那些局外人的口阶 - 其中一些外国人 - 让许多投资者却令人沮丧。一个March report由Jefferies集团得出结论，Topix 500指数中少于10％的公司具有可接受的董事会结构，只有1％的人可能被认为是好的。例如，七＆我拥有四名外部董事，但报告在技能和专业知识方面得到了最糟糕的。“所有外部董事来自学术界，或者是退休的官僚，这是一个负面的官僚，”报告的主要分析师Zuhair Khan说。

Even so, Third Point found an ally in Kunio Ito, a professor at Hitotsubashi University who was appointed to Seven & i’s board in 2014 after heading an advisory committee whose recommendations laid the groundwork for Japan’s corporate governance reforms. When rumors circulated earlier this year that the company’s 83-year-old CEO, Toshifumi Suzuki, was trying to oust the president of its most successful business unit, 7-Eleven Japan, to clear a succession path for his son, Loeb sent an open letter — anathema in Japan — to the board invoking the corporate governance code. “Our goals are fully consistent with the Third Arrow of Abenomics: a focus on shareholder interests and returns, and engagement in forward-looking corporate governance that should make Japanese companies more competitive and attractive investment opportunities,” he wrote.

The call to arms resonated with Ito, who succeeded in killing the April 7 vote to fire the 7-Eleven Japan president, Ryuichi Isaka. Suzuki resigned as CEO hours later. “Corporate governance finally started working at the firm,” says one shareholder, who asked to remain anonymous. “I don’t deny Mr. Suzuki’s tremendous achievement but always felt no one would dare say no to him.”

这是一个罕见的活动对冲基金的胜利，一个偏离的胜利，而不是在日本媒体中妖魔化为公司治理新时代的曙光。“如果他们遵循我们挑选的道路，我认为他们正在追求的道路，七＆我就是一家日本公司的一个例子，这是一个真正繁荣的经济环境繁荣昌盛，”Loeb说。苏苏省辞职后，七和我的股价上涨7.2％，但跌幅为12.8％。

Japanese companies and their domestic investors have traditionally frowned on shareholder activism. In the 1980s buying shares in a company in order to disrupt annual general meetings or blackmail executives became a common tactic of extortionists, calledSokaiya.，谁通常有关系yakuza有组织的犯罪集团。

虽然执法镇压在2000年代初有效地停止了实践，但日本高管引用了在众多野蛮人聚集的新批野蛮人时，过去的Shakedown试图试图避开活动。从2003年到2010年，由Warren Lichtenstein领导的猜测纽约对冲基金公司钢铁合作伙伴曾试图接管一系列日本企业，包括札幌啤酒厂，只能被毒药和敌对的媒体挫败。

然而，今天，日本开始改变其调整。作为第三次箭头的一部分，ABE呼吁机构更积极参与他们投资的公司。超过100名货币管理者和资产所有者同意在2014年签署日本的管理委员会“负责机构投资者”签署日本的管理规则时听取了声音。亚博赞助欧冠

“代码创造了一个欢迎投资者和企业对话的气氛，”Blackrock日本Blackrock日本投资管理团长Akitsugu Era说。自推出该公司的数量以来BlackRock可以访问呈指数增长。2016年上半年，时代的团队会见了150名企业，等于2015年的会议总数，比上年超过三倍。

随着投资者变得更加挑剔，活动家可能会发现更容易赢得支持他们的建议。截至2016年3月份的财政年度，日本的3,600名公开交易公司在股息中支付了11万亿日元（1070亿美元）。他们还收购了价值5.3万亿日元股票，同比上涨60％。

根据伦敦的数据提供商Activist Insight，今年前七个月，Activists在今年的前七个月内有13家日本公司，从2015年的八个。不是每个人都像Loeb一样成功。当儿童投资基金管理层在2011年日本烟草股份1.4％股权时，开始要求国家控制的公司提高其支付比率，退出无利可图的企业并从政府购买储蓄股，其他股东给予它冷肩。克里斯浩, founder and managing partner of the London-based hedge fund firm, and Oscar Veldhuijzen, a partner responsible for the investment, raised their proposals at the company’s annual general meeting for four straight years even though off-agenda questions were against the rules. The tactics didn’t win many friends; TCI lost every proxy fight even after the government reduced its stake from 50 percent to 33 percent in 2013 to raise money for reconstruction following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011. “TCI’s proposal and activist style is still too extreme, too antagonistic to work in Japan, and actually might risk defensive response from the management rather than constructive change,” says one buy-side analyst.

日本烟草最终采用了许多TCI的想法，尽管步行速度较慢，比较小的规模比公司在发言人坚持下，而不是因为股东压力。“理论上，我们将能够在其他股东的帮助下强迫管理的手，”Veldhuijzen说。“但日本股东总是符合管理层的建议。”

其他活动家采用了不太反对的方法。Alexander Roepers，创始人和CIO为13亿美元的大西洋投资管理，回忆说，在他对日本的第一次访问期间，在2004年，他必须在与公司管理层的每一次会面中解释他的纽约的公司不是钢合作伙伴的副本抄送其他美国活动人士。“在许多情况下，他们没有完成他们的作业或者正在咆哮一棵树永远不会移动的树，”Roepers说，参考其他活动家。“在一天结束时，我们的价值投资者正在推出我们的袖子，并与管理层一起工作以改善每个人的东西，我认为这是唯一有效的方式。”

大西洋于2006年开设了东京办事处，现在有四名员工。在过去的三年里，Roepers的团队被邀请与高级顾问见面，以咨询新的公司治理码。今天的活动家“有一个公司治理守则，即在海洋变革的情况下摇晃棍子，”日本董事会培训学院的联合创始人Nicholas Benes说，他还在守则中征求了ABE管理。“之前，如果你谈到股东价值并提高你的收入和Roe [股权返回]，人们可以在额头上用一个大的'A'标记你的活动家，然后你是个坏人。”

Misaki Capital于2014年推出其第一个基金，现在管理约3亿美元，永远不会在公共和避开公开的管理中发表不利。“Dan Loeb因为他是外国人而逃脱了，”首席投资官Masaki Gotoh表示。“如果我试图这样做，我永远无法在日本再次做任何事情，因为我是当地，人们将基本上说，'你应该知道更好。'”

Gotoh的名片在日语中携带口号“工作股东”。The firm’s co-founders — proud of their management consulting backgrounds — have been honing their engagement strategy since 2005. In 2015 the team scored one of its first successes when baby products company Pigeon Corp. enlisted Misaki’s chief engagement officer, Takayuki Nitta, as an outside director in response to the new corporate governance code.

即使是Loeb也会调整他的方法。他的来说是七的信，我是毒品笔的呐喊，在20世纪90年代末建立了他的声誉。“有人说我们已经柔软或变得更加成熟，”Loeb说。他坚持认为，更温和的讲话并不是日本的特点，但在第三点的所有最近投资中一致：“老实说，在处理大公司采取建设性的语气时更有效。”

In February 2015 the hedge fund firm announced a stake in Fanuc Corp., a family-owned business notorious for busing analysts and shareholders to its secluded headquarters once a year to listen to management presentations, with no questions allowed. Weeks later Fanuc opened its first-ever investor relations department, and the company doubled its dividend that same year. “They’ve become more transparent and actually bought back stock, which they’d never done before,” says Loeb. “I think what we’re really doing is bringing about a cultural shift at these companies.”

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Follow Jess Delaney on Twitter at@jdelaney_NYC。